


Two Birds with One Stone

by captainjackspearow



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Character Death, Destroy Ending, F/M, Mass Effect 3, Sad with a Happy Ending, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 16:26:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4486614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainjackspearow/pseuds/captainjackspearow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kasumi Goto, Commander Shepard, and Keiji Okuda walk into a bar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Birds with One Stone

She’s at a bar. 

It’s a fairly swanky place, decked out in warm lights and crystal embellishment, though not quite as fancy as that place she and Keiji hit back on Illium several years back. There’s all sorts milling about, wandering through the main room, some engaged in conversation, others in search of friends, and more still drinking alone. She walks by a pair of Quarians curled up in a booth, murmuring amongst themselves in low tones, and wonders whether they’ve just lost someone. Perhaps they’re simply scared to lose each other. 

Making her way towards the bartender, she spots an all-too-familiar face seated alone, red hair askew and hanging practically into her drink. She’s drunk too much, which is uncharacteristic for the commander. Maintaining appearances, and all that. Public despair is bad for morale.

 

Kasumi opts to surprise her friend, only decloaking once she’s taken her place seated at the adjacent barstool. “Fancy seeing you here, Commander.” 

Shepard winces, refusing to look up from her drink. “Didn’t expect to see you here, Kasumi.”

Kasumi shrugs at that, then motions at the bartender, who nods and slides her a glass of something purple. It’s sweeter than she expects, but surprisingly palatable.

She’s not sure what to say to Shepard, and it’s not the first time she’s been at a loss for words. Something’s obviously wrong, something more than what happened at Thessia (it was all over the news). Shepard’s spirits had been high enough at the party. She hopes nothing happened to Garrus. She’s not sure she can stomach that conversation.

It’s up to her to break the silence, however, so she asks anyway. “What are you doing here?”

There’s a snort, and Shepard downs the rest of her glass’ contents. “Waiting for someone.”

Kasumi eyeballs her standard-issue uniform. Business meeting? Nothing diplomatic, or else she’d be in those unfortunate dress-blues. Maybe an old friend?

“Aren’t you supposed to be saving the galaxy or something?

Both of them continue on, making awkward, polite conversation, each avoiding the massive Elcor in the room until Kasumi can’t stand the polite pretending anymore.

“Did someone die?”

 

The conversation freezes at that. Shepard finally looks up at her with tired eyes and nods once, slowly. Kasumi swallows and asks if it’s anyone she knows. Shepard nods again.

“Shit. Who?”

“More than one.”

“ _Shit._ Is that why you’re drinking yourself into a stupor in public?”

Shepard nods again.

“What happened?”

“We fucked up.”

“We meaning who?”

The other woman shrugs at that. “Alliance? Protheans? Myself, for sure. All of us, really.”

“So it’s the crucible.”

“That too.”

Kasumi raises her eyebrows at that. “Something else, then? Another super-secret military project that requires vast amounts of stolen tech and bodyguards with rippling biceps?”

She’s finally gotten a grin out of the soldier, who just shakes her head before downing her next drink.

“Well, if it’s not that, then what is it?”

Shepard pauses before turning around towards her. “You know how the large majority of the refugees were making their way towards the Citadel?”

Kasumi nods. She’s wandered amongst them, time to time, looking for familiar faces.

“They’re all dead.”

 

That can’t be right. 

 

“Shepard, you’re drunker than I thought.”

“I saw them, Kasumi. _Piles_ of them. We lost the Citadel.”

“Shepard, we’re _on_ the Citadel.”

 

They were, weren’t they? One of the high-end bars she’d always glimpsed through a window but never had the incentive to enter before now. She’d wanted a break from the Crucible ships for a while now, though nowhere was safer.

Or at least, she’d wanted that, until they’d gotten news that the Citadel had been moved to Earth.

Which was, coincidentally, the planet on which the woman sitting next to her was supposed to be fighting her ass off on.

 

And then the Crucible was deployed.

 

Shit. 

 

Her dawning realization must have shown in her eyes or something, because Shepard’s just motioned at the bartender again, and he’s swapped out Kasumi’s glass for a full one.

She takes an overly zealous sip and nearly chokes on it - it’s that strong. “So I take it I didn’t escape the blast radius?”

Shepard shrugs. “Sort of. The Crucible pretty much fried all high-level tech." 

“Ah. The graybox, then.”

“That’d be my guess.”

“That’s… strangely fitting, I suppose. I’d suspected mine would kill me too in the end, too, though it’s not exactly how I pictured it-”

A wonderfully familiar laugh cuts her off at that, and it’s all Kasumi can do to gasp before jabbing accusingly at the space above the seemingly empty stool to her right.

 

“And just how long have you been sitting there, exactly, you complete _asshole_?”

 

The asshole in question laughs twice as hard at that, and Kasumi continues to poke indignantly at the decloaking figure, accusing him of “being a massive dick” and “robbing her of a romantic reunion” and “not even saying hello to her” until he’s stopped laughing enough to speak.

 “Hello to you too, little bird.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ardent Kasumi fan tumblr user chewableninja.
> 
> But yes, notes: basically, assuming the catalyst isn’t lying, and choosing destroy sets off a bomb that pretty much fries all high-level tech beyond repair (AIs, VIs, Shepard’s cybernetics), then uh… theoretically, wouldn’t that have included a certain someone’s graybox?


End file.
